Narratives Analysis Essay on Grace Patricias Butterflies and Walwicz Anias Fairytale

The two narratives, Grace Patricias Butterflies and Walwicz Anias Fairytale diverge from the contemporary text of what youd expect from stories based on their respective titles. In Butterflies the audience learns through an expected turn in the story about the gap that exists between the rich and the poor. The granddaughter is from a poor family, as evidenced by the setting where she meets her grandfather hoeing the cabbage. She tells him that she wrote a story of dead butterflies, and was condemned by her teacher for killing the butterflies in her story. The teacher said that butterflies are beautiful and should not be killed. The grandfather answers that her teacher was not right because she always bought her vegetables from the supermarket. The retort creates an innuendo that the teacher was not all that familiar with the ugly side of butterflies since she never worked on the farm. The audience is, however, expecting a tale where the child likes butterflies like everyone else and would not hurt them. But the author uses the symbolism of the butterfly to show the gap between the rich and the poor. In Fairytale, we encounter three sisters on a quest to find prince charming. Two of the women are well educated, but ugly. They take a rather grotesque approach to finding their perfect mate. They tear men apart and sew them together in their attempts. This is a far removed narrative to what the audience is used to in tales of love and living happily ever after.

What Do The Authors Assume the Reader Knows?

The authors of the two stories make the assumption that the readers are already familiar with tales that are mostly suggestive of happy endings. They also assume that the author can make conclusions of life by providing little clues such as the explanation given by the two grandfather of the teacher. In effect, the authors use these assumptions to bring surprising twists to the stories such as when the three ugly sisters finally give up on their quest and settle for their individual pursuits.

What are the Underlying Meanings?

The underlying meanings in Butterflies is the gap between the poor and the rich. The teacher, from a rich community, only sees butterflies as beautiful creatures capable of no harm. She says that butterflies only visit beautiful places, and therefore should not be killed. However, to the grandfather, butterflies are not so beautiful. One can only presume that the grandfather detests butterflies because they invade his farm and damage his crops. In the Fairytale, the underlying meaning is that beauty is not always worth the pursuit. The ugly sisters at the end decide to quit the pursuit of searching for a handsome partner in favor of following their own pursuits. It is as if they notice that beauty is not the only thing worth pursuing in life.

The narrator is the one who seems to be telling the story; the author is the one who wrote it. What is the difference, if any, in their attitudes towards the subject matter?

The author in the Buttterflies seems to be indifferent towards the subject of the gap between the rich and the poor. Throughout the text, he does not use phrases that would address the gap. However, the narrator takes on a position suggestive that he takes the plight of the poor.

In Fairtytale, the narrator takes the audience through a face-paced story line, depicting the exploits of the sisters in detail. However, at the end of the story, the narrator seems to side with the decision of the two sisters, and consequently on may assume that both the narrator and the author share the common belief that beauty is not the only thing worth pursuing in the world.